Home-schooled kids on the rise
Number of 7-year-olds being educated away from school is 60, double that in 2003.
The Straits Times, Home, April 18 2008
The article focuses on the growing trend of parents who decide to pull their children out of the mainstream education system and home-schooling them.
Home-schooling is a system where parents are the mentors and tutors to the child, who in turn is the student. Home-schooling provides excellent flexibility as parents are able to decide on what to teach, when to teach and how to teach - creating a completely different syllabus which is specially tailored to fit the students (in this case, the child's) needs.
The article tells us that parents who decide to home-school their children "are generally middle-class and well educated" who "tend to be Christian families who want their children's education to focus on values amd character development". This implies that parents with to infuse religous values with the education of their child. The parents who home-school their children are described as "sophisticated, well-educated professionals who give up careeres to take care of their children". The decision to home-school children come from a wide range or reasons such as unhappiness with the mainstream system.
Personally, I feel that home-schooling has many benefits. For a start, it is extremely flexible. The mainstream education syllabus, which is tailored to shape the general student population to fit the future needs of the nation and to study a wide range of subjects to achieve a well rounded education, has a major flaw which is that it is impossible for the system to specially cater for each student's individual requirements. It also does not allow the student to progress at his/her own pace, forcing the student to catch up with the highly rigorous education system. On the other hand, as home-schooling is deisgned by the child's parents - the ones who understands their child best - the syllabus can be tailored to suit the learning pace, capacity and interests of the child.
One benefit of home-schooling is that it allows the child to have more emphasis on a certain area of study, usually an area he/she shows an interest in. By allowing the child to have a major emphasis on a certain area of study in which he/she shows interest, it allows the child to enhance his/her knowledge of that particular topic. It also allows the student to realise that learning can be fun, and not boring. This is in stark contrast to the mainstream system, where students often do not have a chance to develop their interests and are instead forced to study common topics which may not appeal to everyone, giving them a mentaliy that education is boring and meaningless.
Another benefit of home-schooling is that it fosters stronger parent-child bonds and shields children from negative influences. Through home-schooling, parents play a double role of parent and tutor. As such, every aspect of the child's development involves communication between parent and child. Over time, the child will learn to trust the parent and treat the parent with respect - both as parent and mentor. Besides, learning together fosters great relatonships, which is seen clearly even in mainstream schools. Also, the child is often shielded away from many negative influences. For instance, many students who smoke, gamble, get into fights or are addicted to computer game often start doing these due to peer pressure from fellow classmates. However, home-schooling blocks all these distractions and bad habits, allowing the child to grow and develop in a morall upright manner.
However, one cannot deny the many disadvantages home-schooling has. One major cause of concern over home-schooling is that home-schooled children would be unable to fit into society, especially among his/her peers. Because home-schooled children interact only with family members and occassionaly, relatives and their children, they often miss out certain social skills acquirable only in schools where interaction with peers occur everyday. Such skills include being able to tolerate uncooperative peers or giving way to others - in a home-schooled system, this exists only in theory (ie. parents tell children to do this and that without them actually experiencing it themselves). Personally, I feel that when they finally enter mainstream education, they may find it a bit awkward to socialise with others and may not be able to understand why their peers act in a certain way.
Another problem is that home-schooling does not push students out of their comfort zone. More than often, home-schooled children are often allowed to progress at their own pace instead of stretching them to catch up with a fast pace. In todays highly competitive society, it is essential to be on the balls of our feet at every single point in time. However, home-schooling often results in the child being too comfortable and thus rendering the child unable to push him/herself to a competitive pace. As stated from a student in the article, " I choose to study when I want to study". Unfortunately, home-schooled students must realise that they cannot choose when to work as the workforce will keep progressing at an uncomfortable pace - in order to stay ahead of the workforce, one must suit the workforce's pace and not his/her own; the ability to accomodate to other's pace is something home-schooling is unable to provide to students.
Ultimately, I feel that if parents really want to home-school children, they must strike a balance. Perhaps in the lower primary age can they be home-schooled as it is important to develop the right areas and keep them away from negative influences at a young age. It is also important to inculcate a passion for learning at a young age. However, the longer one is home-schooled, the longer one is cut away from his/her peers and the mechanisms of society. Thus all students should, by upper primary age, be re-introduced back into mainstream education so as to ensre that they would be able to survive the highly competitive society in future.
JonTan
The Straits Times, Home, April 18 2008
The article focuses on the growing trend of parents who decide to pull their children out of the mainstream education system and home-schooling them.
Home-schooling is a system where parents are the mentors and tutors to the child, who in turn is the student. Home-schooling provides excellent flexibility as parents are able to decide on what to teach, when to teach and how to teach - creating a completely different syllabus which is specially tailored to fit the students (in this case, the child's) needs.
The article tells us that parents who decide to home-school their children "are generally middle-class and well educated" who "tend to be Christian families who want their children's education to focus on values amd character development". This implies that parents with to infuse religous values with the education of their child. The parents who home-school their children are described as "sophisticated, well-educated professionals who give up careeres to take care of their children". The decision to home-school children come from a wide range or reasons such as unhappiness with the mainstream system.
Personally, I feel that home-schooling has many benefits. For a start, it is extremely flexible. The mainstream education syllabus, which is tailored to shape the general student population to fit the future needs of the nation and to study a wide range of subjects to achieve a well rounded education, has a major flaw which is that it is impossible for the system to specially cater for each student's individual requirements. It also does not allow the student to progress at his/her own pace, forcing the student to catch up with the highly rigorous education system. On the other hand, as home-schooling is deisgned by the child's parents - the ones who understands their child best - the syllabus can be tailored to suit the learning pace, capacity and interests of the child.
One benefit of home-schooling is that it allows the child to have more emphasis on a certain area of study, usually an area he/she shows an interest in. By allowing the child to have a major emphasis on a certain area of study in which he/she shows interest, it allows the child to enhance his/her knowledge of that particular topic. It also allows the student to realise that learning can be fun, and not boring. This is in stark contrast to the mainstream system, where students often do not have a chance to develop their interests and are instead forced to study common topics which may not appeal to everyone, giving them a mentaliy that education is boring and meaningless.
Another benefit of home-schooling is that it fosters stronger parent-child bonds and shields children from negative influences. Through home-schooling, parents play a double role of parent and tutor. As such, every aspect of the child's development involves communication between parent and child. Over time, the child will learn to trust the parent and treat the parent with respect - both as parent and mentor. Besides, learning together fosters great relatonships, which is seen clearly even in mainstream schools. Also, the child is often shielded away from many negative influences. For instance, many students who smoke, gamble, get into fights or are addicted to computer game often start doing these due to peer pressure from fellow classmates. However, home-schooling blocks all these distractions and bad habits, allowing the child to grow and develop in a morall upright manner.
However, one cannot deny the many disadvantages home-schooling has. One major cause of concern over home-schooling is that home-schooled children would be unable to fit into society, especially among his/her peers. Because home-schooled children interact only with family members and occassionaly, relatives and their children, they often miss out certain social skills acquirable only in schools where interaction with peers occur everyday. Such skills include being able to tolerate uncooperative peers or giving way to others - in a home-schooled system, this exists only in theory (ie. parents tell children to do this and that without them actually experiencing it themselves). Personally, I feel that when they finally enter mainstream education, they may find it a bit awkward to socialise with others and may not be able to understand why their peers act in a certain way.
Another problem is that home-schooling does not push students out of their comfort zone. More than often, home-schooled children are often allowed to progress at their own pace instead of stretching them to catch up with a fast pace. In todays highly competitive society, it is essential to be on the balls of our feet at every single point in time. However, home-schooling often results in the child being too comfortable and thus rendering the child unable to push him/herself to a competitive pace. As stated from a student in the article, " I choose to study when I want to study". Unfortunately, home-schooled students must realise that they cannot choose when to work as the workforce will keep progressing at an uncomfortable pace - in order to stay ahead of the workforce, one must suit the workforce's pace and not his/her own; the ability to accomodate to other's pace is something home-schooling is unable to provide to students.
Ultimately, I feel that if parents really want to home-school children, they must strike a balance. Perhaps in the lower primary age can they be home-schooled as it is important to develop the right areas and keep them away from negative influences at a young age. It is also important to inculcate a passion for learning at a young age. However, the longer one is home-schooled, the longer one is cut away from his/her peers and the mechanisms of society. Thus all students should, by upper primary age, be re-introduced back into mainstream education so as to ensre that they would be able to survive the highly competitive society in future.
JonTan
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